


The Snooper and the Altruist

by EmmaTheRevelator (BadWolf1988)



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, North Carolina, Older Man/Younger Woman, Romance, Superheroes, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-19 10:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13702389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolf1988/pseuds/EmmaTheRevelator





	1. May 2, 2000

        “Dad, can I sleep on the couch in here?”

        Alistair Lachlan turned to find his seven-year-old son, Patrick, standing in the doorway of his study. The young boy's jet-black curly hair was sleep tussled and his blue eyes glassy. He must have been awoken by the raging thunderstorm outside. When a particularly loud clap of thunder shook the house and Patrick jumped skittishly, his suspicions were confirmed.

        “Patrick, you must stop doing this son.” Alistair stood from his sturdy wooden desk and walked to stand in front of his son. “Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.” He rattled off an old Japanese proverb. He had no idea how to comfort the boy. That had always been Christina's job and his wife had been dead for over a year. Besides, fear was good for the kid. It built character. Patrick had been sleeping in the study while he worked more and more lately. They had barely spent any time together, Patrick being a mama's boy, prior to Christina's death. Now, the child was attached to his damn hip whenever he was home. The kiddie shrink he had hired had assured him that Patrick was just mourning the death of his mother and the phase would pass but it wasn't happening fast enough. He loved his son, he truly did but this was becoming incredibly irksome.

        Alistair had moved them from the hustle and bustle of Dare City to Quiet Bluff, the home of his company's flagship polymers plant, in an attempt to help Patrick get a sense of normalcy in his young life. It had been three months. Why wasn't it working?

        When another clap of thunder shook the mansion so badly that he almost lost his footing and a panicked Patrick scrambled to cling to his side, Alistair relented. “Alright... but this is the last time.” Truth be told, the storm was actually starting to shake him up a little.

        Patrick, who had come prepared with a blanket and pillow, went and made himself comfortable on the red leather sofa that sat in front of the marble fireplace. Alistair went back to his desk to finish going over the report on Lachlan Industries expected second-quarter profits when there was a knock on the study door.

        Looking up, Alistair found his butler, Roland, standing in the doorway holding a cordless phone in his hand. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I have an urgent call from Tag Chandler.”

        “What could be so urgent at this hour?” he demanded. It was ten at night for pete's sake. Why would his plant manager be calling him?

        “He says lightning's struck the PBX building creating a fire and they are having a hard time putting it out.”

        The PBX building was where Lachlan Industries manufactured TNT for demolition companies and high powered explosives for the military. If the fire wasn't contained before it reached the supply room the consequences could be catastrophic.

        “Put him through!” Alistair barked, making Patrick jump up to see what was going on.

        “What's wrong, dad?” Patrick asked, a little quiver in his lip.

        “Not now, Patrick!” Alistair waved his son off as his private line rang. “Explain, NOW!” he answered the phone.

        “Mr. Lachlan, lightning hit a generator and ignited the south wall of the PBX building. We have the sprinklers going and all available water sources have been diverted to the building. The fire department's on the scene and they've called in reinforcements from Charlotte but so far we can't contain it.” Alistair could hear the panic in his plant manager's voice.

        “How long before the fire reaches that supply room?” This time Alistair jumped right along with his son when thunder shook the study.

        “It's not the supply room we're worried about, sir,” Tag replied grimly. “We've only got forty-five minutes before the fire reaches the lab that contains Project Cambire.”

        Alistair's heart almost stopped. Project Cambire was a missile that had been contracted by the CIA. The missile was a delicate mixture of tetryl and nitroglycerin mixed with something called zmiana. Zmiana was a mutagen chemical designed by CIA scientists to cause horrible mutations in those poisoned with it. The Cambire missile was designed to be a mini atomic bomb. The zmiana had an agent that intensified existing explosives. The damage would spread a mile. Lachlan Manor sat exactly one mile from Lachlan Polymers.

        “Evacuate all non-essential personnel, that includes you, Mr. Chandler,” he ordered.

        “Yes, sir... and Mr. Lachlan? It might be wise to call the mayor and evacuate the areas around the plant.” Clearly, Tag had little faith in the fire being extinguished. If he was this concerned, it would probably be best to move Patrick and the household staff into the mansion's panic room.

        “I'll do that,” he agreed. “Phone me back when the plant has been evacuated.”

        “Yes, sir, Mr. Lachlan.”

        When Tag had given his estimate of time before the plant blew... he had forgotten about a shipment of RDX explosives that had been delivered to the PBX building earlier in the day... a delivery that was sitting on the loading dock that was located on the south side of the building.

        Alistair had barely hung up the phone before what sounded a lot like thunder caused by an angry Zeus shook the entire mansion. Barely a second later, the windows shattered, sending shards of glass flying everywhere. A wave of heat, that was so hot it felt cold, swept over the room like a gust of wind in summer. The last Alistair would hear before blacking out was the terrified screams of his son.

 

 


	2. October 28, 2017

**OCTOBER 28, 2017**

**QUIET BLUFF, NORTH CAROLINA**

  
  


        “Hey, Mar, Dare City was named in honor of who?”

        “Nice try,” Marleigh Chandler laughed at her best friend. “I'm not helping you with your social studies homework, Wyatt Dawson.” She silently celebrated when the DMV file she was looking for finally pulled up on her computer screen.

        After school in the afternoons, Marleigh worked with her father as a tracker. Trackers located and kept tabs on preterhumans. Preterhumans were people whose DNA had been altered by the catastrophic Lachlan Warehouse explosion seventeen years earlier. These preterhumans tended to have incredible superhuman abilities – flight, invisibility, super strength – you name it, and all of them were blessed with the power of accelerated healing. Not a single preterhuman had died since the explosion... not even from natural causes. While most preterhumans hid their powers from society, and some used them to become real-life superheroes – like nearby Dare City's Yellow Phoenix – still others came unhinged by the extreme burden placed on them by their abilities. Those preterhumans were dealt with by the Preterhuman Division of the North Carolina State Police. The police tended to get most of their intel from trackers.

        Marleigh's father, Tag, had started the Chandler Tracking Company almost sixteen years earlier, right after the first known preterhuman attack. She had been just a baby at the time of the warehouse explosion but Marleigh knew that her father had been the plant manager at the time and her mother had been killed in the blast. Marleigh was pretty sure her father blamed himself for the disaster and that tracking preterhumans was his way of somehow paying penance.

        “Ha!” Wyatt got her attention from the desk that sat across from hers in the tiny little company office. “Google was more helpful than you. Dare City was named for Virginia Dare, the first child born in the American colonies.”

        Marleigh looked up and dryly asked, “what? Do you want me to give you a treat for having to look up a fact that you should have learned in elementary school?”

        “Damn, claws away, kitten,” Wyatt laughed. “What has you so worked up? I know it's not a lack of caffeine because I bought you a coffee before school, a soda at lunch, and I brought you a Redbull when I came into work. I know bad things happen when too much blood gets in your caffeine system.”

        Marleigh hit the print button on her laptop and got to her feet from her desk chair. “It's just this preter that I've been looking for. A lot of unexplained fires seem to happen around this woman, Wyatt... and she's a teacher. She's surrounded by kids all day, every day.”

        “What's her name?” Wyatt got to his feet. “I'll go and check her out; see if she's dangerous.”

        Wyatt was a six-foot tall linebacker on the Quiet Bluff High School's football team who worked for Marleigh's dad part-time. He did recon (spying) and was the best there was at it. He always managed to get the needed information.

        “Tara Marks.” She grabbed the paper out of the printer with the woman's personal information and license photo on it and handed it to him.

 

 


	3. The Lost Colony

        There was only one coffee shop in all of Quiet Bluff. It was located on Virginia Street (Main Street) and was called The Lost Colony. The building that housed the shop and the adjacent bookstore had once been a firehouse and a fireman's pole ran from the second floor down to the first. Every kid in town had gone down it at least once before the shop's manager, old Mrs. Herschel, had put up a sign declaring it off-limits to customers. She had put the sign up right after Marleigh had gone down it on a dare from Wyatt when they were in the 7th grade. Marleigh had let go of the pole too early and ended up crashing down onto a nearby table. On top of breaking the table, she had also broken her left wrist and put a dent in her father's bank account when he had to pay for the damage.

        The coffee that was served at The Lost Colony was horrible. It wasn't uncommon for folks around Quiet Bluff to refer to it as mud. Still, it was cheap and Mrs. Herschel would let you stay as long as you wanted so long as you bought one cup. If she really liked you, she'd give you free refills of the toxic brown sludge that she called coffee. The shop was Marleigh's favorite place to study. She was a senior and taking AP honors classes to try and boost her academic resume. If she wanted to have a shot at getting accepted into Dare City University she really had to work for it. DCU was a private college that was largely funded by Alistair Lachlan, the billionaire CEO of Lachlan Industries. Everything about the school was top of the line, from its professors all the way down to its equipment and facilities. Even if you were an in-state student DCU was harder to get into than both Harvard and Princeton combined.

        “What's got you thinkin' so hard today, sweetie pie?” Mrs. Herschel arrived at Marleigh's corner booth and went to refill her cup. She frowned slightly when she discovered it still full.

        “I have a report due at school on Monday and I'm having trouble coming up with enough information to give it any substance.” Marleigh reached up and unclasped her hair, running a hand through her shoulder length blonde curls.

        Mrs. Herschel sat the coffee pot she was holding down on the table and took a seat across from her. “Well, what's the report about?”

        “The history of Quiet Bluff from its settlement to today. My problem is that I have a huge gap once I get to the year I was born. I know the basic history but no one I know who remembers will talk about it. It's like everyone wants to forget that the year 2000 ever happened.” Marleigh knew she was ranting but she needed to get it out. Mrs. Herschel, maternal and childless, never minded. She knew that Marleigh didn't have a mom so she was always there to lend a female ear when the occasion called for it.

        “That was a very dark time in this town, the state and country too. First, the warehouse explosion and then not even a year later 9/11 happened. The early 2000s were just a bad point in history.” Mrs. Herschel sounded sad and that's because she was. Mr. Herschel had been killed in the warehouse explosion just like Marleigh's mom. Her nephew, Otis, had been killed on 9/11 when he couldn't escape the South Tower of the World Trade Center before its collapse. From what Marleigh had heard, his was one of the numerous bodies never recovered from Ground Zero. The early 2000s certainly were a devastating time for Mrs. Herschel.

        “Just because times were bad doesn't mean we should just forget,” Marleigh shook her head. “That kind of denial isn't healthy... especially for an entire town.”

        “No one forgot anything, sweetie pie.” Mrs. Herschel reached in her apron and pulled out a pen and paper. “We just don't like being reminded of things that hurt. Take it from an old woman, you can't live your life in the past and be happy.” She scribbled on the pad of paper before tearing off the top sheet, folding it and passing it across the table. “If you really want to know about 2000 in Quiet Bluff, go and see her.”


	4. 1287 Croatoan Highway

        Mrs. Herschel had to be playing some kind of a practical joke on her. It was either that or Marleigh was parked in front of the wrong house. Well, house was too strong of a word for the yellow (we're talking banana) dwelling with the peeling paint that Marleigh highly suspected contained enough lead to kill a small classroom full of children. It was more of a ramshackle double wide that was slowly being swallowed by the out of control front lawn. The grass was waist high and went all the way up the front door. Literally. There was grass growing up between the boards of the wooden do-it-yourself front porch. Marleigh double checked the address she had written down in her World History notebook. 1287 Croatoan Highway. She glanced at the rusty house numbers that were located to the left of the front door. The two was upside down and the seven was half hidden by a screen door that had obviously fallen off and been leaned against the side of the house and been forgotten about but she was confident that she had the right address.

        To be cautious, Marleigh slipped a can of pepper spray into the front of her messenger bag before stepping out of the red 1996 Taurus rustbucket that she affectionately named Francis. As she very carefully walked up the wooden steps she noticed a light up sign that read PSHYIC. It was dusty and obviously hadn't been turned on in a long time. Marleigh wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. Taking a deep breath, she patted her back jean pocket to make sure she had her cell phone...just in case. Then, she knocked sharply – there wasn't a doorbell – on the door three times.

        A loud booming issued from the house and Marleigh could head the sounds of paws running along some kind of hard surface.

        “Lucifer! Away from the door! Go to your bed!” The female voice that issued from within the house was so raspy that Marleigh was willing to bet money that she smoked.

        The door jerked open. Seriously, the door was so old and poorly made that it appeared the only way to open it was by using extreme force. The woman who stood panting on the other side of the door looked like a Native American medicine woman...from the bogus and often highly racist old wild wild west shows that were popular in the last 19th century. She had long black hair that had streaks of gray in it and she had braided a few feathers into it. She had high cheekbones, deep-set dark eyes, and lips that she kept glossed to accentuate their natural pink color. She wore enough makeup to give Tammy Faye pause. For real, it wouldn't hurt her to ease up on the black eyeliner and blue mascara. This woman was very obviously using her home's cush location on Croatoan Highway to scam gullible tourists out of their hard earned money. Her whole life was one big tourist trap that she exploited her heritage to set.

        “Hi, my name i –“

        “Marleigh Chandler,” the woman nodded. “I know.

        “Let me guess...the spirits told you?” Marleigh tried really hard not to roll her eyes.

        “No,” the woman shook her head. “I wouldn't bother the spirits with questions I already know the answers to. Lottie Herschel called and told me you'd be stopping by.”

        Oh. Duh.


	5. Sequoya

        The middle-aged woman chuckled huskily. “My name's Sequoya Ahuli.”

        “Is that name for real or did you make that up for business,” Marleigh blurted out. Wow. That was rude and it was now too late to take it back. She had really gone and stuck her foot in her mouth.

        Luckily, Sequoya apparently had a sense of humor and laughed. “Lottie said you were the type of girl who said whatever was on her mine. That's a nice quality to have, honesty, don't lose it.”

        Marleigh was a touch confused. Had Sequoya just complimented her for being rude? If all the adults in her life had done that she would have grown up to be a raging bitch.

        “Lottie said you wanted to ask me some questions?”

        “Oh, yeah,” Marleigh nodded. “If you wouldn't mind, of course.” Marleigh kind of hoped she minded so she could get the hell away from Miss Cleo's Native American cousin.

        “No,” Sequoya smiled and waved her hand. “I have the time. Business is slow with the tourist season ending anyway. Come on inside, my dear.” She stepped aside to allow Marleigh room to enter the trailer. “Don't mind Lucifer. He's all bark and no bite. If you feel something brush your leg, it's just the cat, Cain.”

        “Lucifer and Cain,” Marleigh couldn't help but wonder aloud. What kind of person named their pets after the world's first murderer and Satan himself? Not a normal, that was for damn sure.

        “Terribly tragic souls,” Sequoya shook her head sadly. “They were destroyed by jealousy, jealousy that was brought on by a need for love. Lucifer fell from Heaven because of his need for God's love and attention. Some say Cain walks the earth to this day for the same reason. Very misunderstood men.”

        Cain killed his brother in cold blood. Lucifer started a war for Heaven because he was throwing a temper tantrum over the whole God creating humanity thing. Now he was the Prince of Darkness and lived in a cage in Hell. He was literally in time-out until the apocalypse. Yeah. Those two dudes were totally misunderstood. Sequoya was clearly a lunatic.

        Sequoya led Marleigh into the living room. The furniture all looked like she had purchased it from the Brady Bunch...after the family had used it for several generations. If Marleigh was forced to give the theme of the room a description she'd say: 60's flower child had a baby with Harry Potter and threw up a thrift store's rejects. In the corner in a wicker dog basket lay a medium-sized gray dog that was so ugly and mean looking that Marleigh couldn't hazard a guess as to its breed. Noticing the angry glare he was sending in her direction, she suddenly found Lucifer to be a fitting name for the demonic looking canine.

        “What kind of questions did you want to ask me, my dear? Readings are thirty dollars and you can add an aura cleanse for an extra twenty bucks.” Sequoya took a seat on the green couch and nodded for her to sit in the pink floral chair that looked like it would collapse any second. 

        Marleigh gingerly sat down and shook her head. “I don't need a reading and my aura is perfectly fine, thank you very much. I'm writing a report for school about the history of Quiet Bluff. Mrs. Herschel said you were the woman to talk to about the year 2000.”

        Sequoya grew excited and eagerly nodded her head. “I am,” she assured. “But to understand what happened in 2000, you have to go back a little earlier to 1999.”

        “What happened in 1999?” Besides her birth of course.

        “Oh, it was beautiful,” Sequoya clapped her hands together. “Hurricane Floyd struck us head on and when it did the spirits fell to earth.”

        Spirits? Alrighty then. It appeared that Marleigh had purchased an express ticket on the crazy train and Sequoya was the conductor. 


	6. Spirits and Wings

        “You're saying that spirits from the other side fell to earth during Hurricane Floyd?” Marleigh was going to get Mrs. Herschel back for this.

        Sequoya was obviously a liar looking to make a quick buck.  Either that or she was insane. It was possibly both but no matter which way she looked at it, it all boiled down to the same thing. Marleigh had wasted an afternoon that she could have spent doing actual research for her report. 

        “No,” Sequoya shook her head and closed her eyes. She appeared to be pretending that she was in a trance-like state but in reality, she looked like a drunk who had suddenly forgotten how to open his eyes. “These spirits didn't come from beyond the veil,” she was now drawing out her words like she was an overenthusiastic tour guide at a Halloween haunted house. “No,” her eyes snapped open like someone had just poked her in the ass with a cattle prod. “These spirits have always been here. They were here first...just on a different plain. Hurricane Floyd opened the gate between the plains and in the spirits flew. Everything that happened in Quiet Bluff in the year 2000 happened because of the spirits. The warehouse explosion that caused the preterhumans happened during a storm caused by the Great Spirit sealing the gates between the plains.”

        “Um. Uh. Kay,” Marleigh was at a complete loss as for what to say. She had never been up against this level of crazy before. That was saying something given how many preterhumans she dealt with on a weekly basis. “Is that all you know about the year 2000 in Quiet Bluff?” She could think of literally nothing else intelligent (or polite) to say.

        “No,” Sequoya began toying with an amulet that hung from her neck. “The alpha walks with man and the spirits. He's angry that gate was closed.”

        Marleigh slowly began to get to her feet. “Wow. So much useful information for my report but I really need to get going. I have to be at work soon. Thank you so much for your time. You were such a huge help.” She hadn't lied this much since she had broken curfew after prom because she and Wyatt had gotten super drunk at an after party held down on the shores of Blackbeard's River. 

        Sequoya got to her feet to walk her out. “It was no trouble.” When they arrived back at the front door, Sequoya blocked Marleigh from leaving and took her hands and held them. “I like to leave my guests with a little riddle for luck.”

        “Uh...okay?” Marleigh nodded. If it got her out of Crazy Town she'd listen to whatever the hell the mayor had to say.

        Sequoya held eye contact with Marleigh as she spoke. “What is true may appear rotten but common sense must not be forgotten. Not all is as depicted, bad are not all the gifted. Don't fight what seems addictive, it's a blessing, not a curse with which you are afflicted.”

        “Yeah, thanks,” Marleigh forced a smile as she pulled her hands free and beat a hasty retreat back to Francis. She didn't know why but she felt the need to write Sequoya's riddle down in her notebook while she sat waiting for Francis' engine to heat up. She guessed it was the poetry of the words. She had always been a sucker for pretty rhymes. Just as she was about to put the car in drive, her phone started ringing. It was Wyatt. “What's up, Wyatt? Oh, boy, do I have a story to tell you.”

        “I'll bet my story's better. Remember Tara the flaming wonder?” Marleigh wondered if Wyatt even comprehended how homophobic his words might sound to an outsider. Probably not given how truly airheaded the farm boy could be. “Yeah, I just watched that chick sprout wings and fly away.”

        Wings? Had he seriously just said wings? Well. That most certainly was a new one.


End file.
